Facebook Instant Article now available across Android

After initially unveiling its Instant Articles feature to Apple iOS, Facebook announced Wednesday that its quick news feature is now finally available for Android users.Facebook’s instant articles, which was launched on iOS earlier this year followed by Android rollout starting in India, has now been made available for all Android users globally. “We’re excited to announce that everyone who uses the Facebook for Android app can now read thousands of Instant Articles every day in News Feed from publishers worldwide.WASHINGTON, United States—Facebook said Wednesday it had signed up 350 global media partners for its “Instant Articles” service as it expanded the program to Android devices.

According to independent metrics from StatCounter, Android is the dominant mobile OS in the Philippines, with a 63% local market share as of November versus iOS’ 29%. The service launched this year for Apple devices allows users to quickly view news articles which are hosted on the fast network of the world’s biggest social network. “We’ve been beta testing Instant Articles for Android with a small group of people on Facebook for several weeks, and as we saw on iPhone, the faster, richer reading experience inspires people on Android to share Instant Articles with their friends more often than they do with standard web articles,” said Facebook product manager Michael Reckhow. “More than 350 publications around the world have already joined the Instant Articles program to date, and more than 100 are already publishing daily—with more joining each day.” Some of the publications joining the service include the Straits Times of Singapore; India Times, France’s Le Parisien and Paris Match; Germany’s Spiegel; Britain’s Guardian, Telegraph and Daily Mail; La Nacion of Argentina and dozens of US and Canadian news outlets.

The list includes several publishers in China, Australia, more than a dozen each in India, France, and Germany, as well as multiple partners in Spain, the United Kingdom (including the Daily Mail and the Economist) and several countries in Latin America and Southeast Asia. At least one of those publishing partners—namely, the Washington Post—has taken an all-in approach and is distributing 100% of its news output through Facebook. Facebook hasn’t said whether this will influence how they are displayed in its news feed, but it’s not hard to imagine that it will have an effect.